1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to activation of electronic equipment, purchased by consumers, to avoid theft and particularly to activation of such electronic equipment at the point-of-sale thus allowing such electronic equipment to be displayed in the open, in a self-serve setting, yet avoiding theft of the same.
2. Description of the Prior Art
It has become customary and, in fact, prevalent to sell electronic equipment at retail stores that in the past did not participate in such sales. For example, retail stores, such as Walmart, Kmart, Walgreens, etc., regularly sell complex and sophisticated electronic cards as a big part of their retail sales. Flash cards fall into the category of such complex electronic cards and are thus an example of electronic card sales at the foregoing and other retail stores.
Flash cards and other types of electronic cards have become small in size throughout the years as modern technology advances and reaches new transistor size reductions. Due to the complexity and size of these types of cards, they are rather expensive. Sales of such cards is however, best done on a self-serve basis. That is, in the retail store, the customer generally likes to see the product at a location where it can be readily picked up and observed prior to purchase thereof as opposed to presented behind a locked window counter where a salesperson is required to present the product to the customer.
Self-serve sales of expensive electronic equipment, such as complex electronic cards, has posed a major problem to retail stores in that they can be easily stolen. This is particularly true of smaller-sized products, such as flash cards, as they can be easily hidden. Indeed, it has been shown, that fifty percent of shoplifting is performed by either casual shoppers or employees of the store. The amount of loss due to theft has risen and is now astronomical.
Thus, the need arises for a method and apparatus to avoid theft of electronic equipment at stores by activating the equipment only at the point-of-sale such that the equipment is inoperational prior to the activation thus discouraging the general public from inappropriately taking the equipment from the store.